Black
by LeCoeur
Summary: An objective reflection of the family Black. Spoilers for OotP. Rating for mature themes.
1. Preface

Author's Disclaimer:  The House of Black and everyone gracing its presence belongs to JK Rowling.  I'm just using them for my own nonprofit, no-copyright-infringement-intended enjoyment.

"Black" 

            There was once a time when I was a thing of beauty, when people were proud of me and took care of me.  There was time when I felt needed and useful, when I felt sun and rain distinctly.  For many years I've not noticed the difference, however; when I became neglected and uncherished, such sensitivities were lost.  In my prime, though, I did appreciate the subtleties in weather patterns and the gloriously changing seasons – I very much looked forward to each in its turn.  The same may be said of the many people who once tended to me – as I to them, certainly – for when I was formidable and impressive, those people (so like myself) and I shared a resilient, imperturbable harmony, each doing our parts to mutually uphold time-honoured traditions of the family Black.  I loomed over each of them from their arrival to their departure, an unobtrusive yet undeniable witness to their lives.  Such a coexistence has long since faded, for the Blacks, as families tend to do, grew apart through time and circumstance, and as they drifted ever further from me, I drifted ever further from their thoughts.  Occasionally the air becomes charged with a vaguely familiar but nevertheless undetectable energy and I wonder if this will be the moment I am restored to my former, magnificent self.  But these moments are rare, fleeting, and inevitably end in utter disappointment.  Recently, I have been put to some use, but in comparison with my many years of purposeless solitude, the newly-acquired time in company of others seems very brief.  Indeed, due to events which have taken place even more recently, I fear doomed to return to my state of shameful disregard.  Though there was once a time when I commanded respect and was full of life, I realize now with utmost clarity that I am still ruined and once again ignored, left completely empty in lonely abandonment and frustrating disrepair – I, the noble and most ancient House of Black.

Author's Note:  I started this with plan – To describe the family Black through the eyes of the House (sort of an "if these walls could talk" thing).  I'm suffering a bit of writers block and – I don't ask for reviews, generally – would like some input as to whether or not I'm starting off on the right foot here.  I would love to dig into the family history, primarily concerning the interconnecting relationships between Sirius, Regulus, their mother and their cousins, with maybe a scattered distant relative scattered here and there.  If the House isn't a good enough narrator, I'd like to know so that I could possibly take it from a different angle.  Thanks for reading, now please tell me what you think!


	2. A Wedding

"A Wedding"

I have never seen a pair of newlyweds less in love than the day Ursula and Fairmont Black arrived on my front step.  Still in their ceremonial robes, the young couple entered without speaking and immediately went their separate ways.  Fairmont, whose parents had bequeathed me to him in their will, went at once to the drawing room and pulled the door closed without a sound.  His young bride, scowling and eyeing her new surroundings with immense distaste, set to exploring what was to be her home.  Ursula was familiar to me as well; her and her husband's fathers had been brothers, but as I belonged foremost to the elder, her family rarely crossed my threshold in years past.

            The bride went first to her chambers on the topmost floor, not stopping to look in on her husband, still in the drawing room on the first floor.  She walked with all the dignity her name commanded, but upon closing the door once in her room, her shoulders slumped forward and shook slightly.  Her trunks had been waiting for her arrival since early that morning, and she at once removed her wedding robes, before even having a replacement set ready to wear.  She padded barefoot across the lush carpet, kneeling beside a trunk and removed set after set of expensive-looking and fashionably-cut robes from it.  The last robes she pulled out were black, silk perhaps, and it was on these she decided, and she slipped them over her tediously-styled hair.  Looking satisfied, she turned to the mirror to examine her appearance.

            "Black on your wedding day, my dear?" the glass inquired.

            "I've always been Black," she replied curtly, then left the room, slamming the door behind her.

Her husband started at the sound of the door slamming but did not remove his eyes from the _Daily Prophet_ spread before him.  Fairmont Black had always had a head for business.  His family had lived at Grimmauld Place until his parents were killed in his sixth year of attendance at Hogwarts.  After their deaths, he had gone to live with Ursula's family until he came of age to accept his inheritance, including me.  And here he sat in the drawing room as an unusually cool June breeze wafted through an open window, this young man reading the paper, barely graduated and already with a respectable, pure-blood wife to his name.  He smiled, despite himself.  He had done well.

"Mistress wants tea?"  The house elf shuffled around the kitchen busily as the woman entered.  Her lipped curled and she appeared to be trying very hard to avoid touching anything.

            "Milk, no sugar," she said, walking to the table.  She sighed in disgust.  "Kreacher, come clean this chair, it's filthy."

            "Yes, mistress," he muttered, wiping the dust from the seat.  "Mistress's new home is not nearly as well-kept as she deserves," he said slowly, "Kreacher will be very busy making it worthy of her."

            She pursed her lips and did not reply as the elf went back to preparing her tea.

            "Mistress would like biscuits as well?" he asked, setting the cup in front of her.

            "No," she said quietly, sipping her drink.  "I have no appetite this evening."

            "But I do," came a new voice from the doorway.  Fairmont strode into the kitchen, sending the elf scurrying to a corner to prepare a new cup.

            "What would Master like, sir?"  The elf set the steaming cup before the chair opposite the woman.

            "Surprise me," said the man in an amused voice, leaning to his wife's ear to whisper loudly, "and we'll see if this one keeps his head."

            She glared at him as he went to his seat across from her.  "Kreacher is my business, and so is his head," she replied shortly.

            At this, the elf floated a plate of food directly to his new master's place with expert precision.  Fairmont raised his eyebrows.  "He lives to see another morning," he commented in the same joking manner, ignoring the daggers being shot at him from across the table.

            The meal proceeded in relative silence until at last Fairmont pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair.  Kreacher the house-elf cleaned the table at once, not daring to leave the mess a moment too long.

            "Would Master like a coffee, sir?" he asked, mopping at a spill with his dishtowel.

            The man shook his head as he rose from his seat.  "I'm sleeping in my old room on the second floor," he said to his wife.  "I expect you there in —" he checked the clock on the wall, "twenty minutes."  She stared at him blankly, then nodded her head.  She did not lower her eyes until he had left the room, standing as she stared at the wooden table.

            "Kreacher," she said hoarsely, "if he comes looking for me, tell him I fell ill and will see him in the morning."

            "Is Mistress not well?" asked the elf, sounding terrified.

            "As well as ever.  You will tell him, however, that I am ill and regret that I will be unable to see him until the morning."

            "Yes, Mistress," nodded the elf.

The bride sneaked up the stairs quickly as possible, holding her breath on the second floor landing, continuing to the fourth floor and locking her door behind her once she'd returned to her own chambers.  She tiptoed to her bed, which had somehow been turned-down since she'd last been in the room, and crawled beneath the covers with a tired determination, extinguishing the candles and pulling the blanket to her chin.

            Ten minutes later, she heard him thundering up the stairs, the elf squeaking "But she is ill!" behind his heavy footsteps.  He pounded on her door.  She made no sound, closing her eyes and hoping he would desist.

            "Alohomora," came his muffled voice, and the door clicked open.  His shadow stood silhouetted against the darkness of the hall.

            "Ill or not," he said quietly, "it is our wedding night."

Aside from a shouted disagreement and whispered defeat, the night was otherwise heavily quiet.  Glad though I was to be among the Blacks once more, I couldn't help but feel perhaps that my new companions were less than satisfied with their new home.  Their arrival marked a turning point in my existence, for all previous Blacks I'd known were essentially content to be with me.  This was not a happy union.


	3. An Understanding

"An Understanding"

Windows fogged and closed against the cold December night, two boys lounged comfortably in a bedroom on the second floor.  Christmas was drawing near, and these wizards had returned to me to pass the holidays away from the school where they spent most of the year.  One of them belonged to me – Sirius, the slightly taller, dark-haired boy – the other was obviously his friend.  Light-haired and thinner than should have been allowed, this boy seemed to calm Sirius with his mere presence.  I had long grown accustomed to the curses and sullen demeanor of the eldest Black son, but in the company of this other boy, whom he called Remus, Sirius was somewhat subdued, even jovial.

            The boys lay side-by-side on the bed, shoes piled messily on the floor as their legs extended beyond the heavy coverlet.  The one called Remus had been quietly reading a tattered book for nearly an hour, while Sirius pretended to concentrate on a sloppily-drafted essay he had titled "Safe Practice and Common Misconceptions of the Animagus Transformation."  For many minutes, however, he had been passing furtive glances to the frail-looking boy on his left.  Finally throwing his quill to the floor, he rolled onto his side and spoke.

            "McGonagall is mad if she thinks any of this homework is going to be worth reading once we've turned it in."

            His friend said nothing but smiled slightly.

            "Hey Remus, let me have a look at your Animagus essay?" prodded Sirius.

            The other boy lifted his eyes from his text, furrowed his brow and said, "No."

            Sirius bristled in mock indignation, then flailed dramatically onto his back.

            "Fine.  I'll fail Transfiguration.  Hope you're satisfied."  He peered at his friend from the corner of his eye.

            "You know as well as I do that's not true," said Remus, lowering his eyes to his book once more.  He chuckled noiselessly at his counterpart's frustration.  He turned a page.

            "What are you reading?" asked the Black after several more minutes' silence.  His tone had softened into that of curiosity bordering on reverence.

            "Poe," responded the other simply.

            "What's that?"

            "Edgar Allen Poe," Remus elaborated.  "He was an American writer in the eighteen hundreds.  Mostly short stories.  Barking mad, this guy."  He shook his head in astonishment.  "These stories are really bizarre."

            "Read to me," demanded Sirius, turning abruptly to face his friend.

            "Excuse me?" said the other in mild surprise.

            "Read me a story," repeated Sirius, his voice becoming increasingly animated.  "Look mate, I'm bored and you're reading.  That's really rather selfish of you —" his friend rolled his eyes "— but you could read to me and make us _both_ happy!"

            "How is that supposed to make us both happy?" Remus asked coolly.

            "Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?"  Sirius enunciated each word as he spoke, "_You_ get to keep reading, keeping _me_ entertained in the process.  It's a win-win situation, mate."  He smiled coaxingly at his friend, who stared back at him, eyes twinkling.

            "Will you promise to keep quiet and not interrupt?"

"I swear to behave as if you were a real Hogwarts professor."

Remus laughed and hit Sirius on the shoulder with the flimsy book.  "Oh, that's nice!  I thought you _liked_ me!"  He arose from the bed and strode across the room, nearer to the waning fire in the grate.  With a flick of his wand, the flames roared back into life.

Sirius, looking disgruntled at his friend's abandonment, rolled onto his stomach and folded his arms, resting his head on them, his sharp eyes following the other boy's movements with rapt attention.  Remus began pacing the floor before the fire, cleared his throat, and read, "Right then.  I've just started one called _The Fall of the House of Usher_."  His soft voice carried clearly across the room, leaving a satisfied, hypnotized look on Sirius' face.

"'. . .found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.  I know not how it was – but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.  I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.  I looked upon the scene bef—'" the boy ceased his pacing.  "Whoa!  Sorry mate, didn't see you."  

He lowered the book to his side, looking into the face of the Black, who had suddenly arisen from his place on the bed and deliberately put himself in the path of his friend.

Sirius shook his head, his dark hair swaying carelessly.  "D'you realise what that sounds like?" he asked his friend.  The other didn't move.  "It sounds like Grimmauld Place."  He removed the book from his friend's hand and scanned the pages, reading aloud as he went.

"'Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend.  His reserve had been always excessive and habitual.'  That sounds like you," he murmured distractedly, not noticing that his friend had stepped closer to him, closing the space between them to less than an arms-length.  He continued, oblivious to his friend's perplexed frown.

"Blah blah blah . . . 'An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.'"  He clenched his jaw and closed the book, brushing his friend's robes as he dropped his hand to his side.  When he spoke, it was directly into the other boy's face, now even closer to his own.  "This bloke, Poe.  Sounds like he's been here," he said flatly.

I took great offense to this statement, though I could not help but acknowledge the truth behind it.

"We don't have to read anymore if you don't like it," suggested the boy called Remus.  "I didn't know what that story was about," he added apologetically.

Sirius pushed the worn book back into Remus' hand, though maintaining his own grip on it.  He seemed incapable of speech but shrugged off his friend's apology.  Remus opened the book once more and flipped though its yellowed pages until he landed on the story so recently abandoned.

With one fleeting and significant glance at the Black, he tore the pages until the story had been completely removed from the book's collection.  Handing half of the pages to his friend and retaining half of them for himself, he smiled grimly.  Neither spoke, but they moved as one, each and both turning to the fire, extending their arms, and letting _The Fall of the House of Usher_ flutter into the flames.  As they watched the paper curling and smoking, Sirius folded his arms.  The other boy put a firm hand on his friend's shoulder, saying calmly over the crackling logs and smoldering pages, "Just think, mate.  Someday, you'll never have to come back here."

Sirius hung his head and laughed softly.  He then turned to his friend and said threateningly, "If you're wrong, Remus, I'm bringing you with me.  No way I'm going to be stuck in this place alone!"  The other boy smiled broadly, apparently relieved that the tension had been alleviated.

"Whatever you say," he grinned, turning away from the fire and striding back to the bed, where he lay once more.  Sirius flung himself beside him, letting his head hang over the edge of the bed.

"I hate this house," came his voice, muffled from his awkward position.

"I know you do," acknowledged the other.

They fell into a comfortable silence.  Remus watched the Black with passive concern.  Sirius eventually slid his head onto the bed and matched his friend's stare.  Neither spoke.

I moaned against the bitter wind whipping around me, hurt by the Black's comparisons and wishing for all the world that I was the house I wanted to be.  Warm, inviting . . . and perhaps, even loved.


End file.
